LOCAL NOBILITY: THE OWNERS OF ZOLYNIA

Coat of Arms of the Potocki family

In 1333, King Casimir III of Poland, created a domain for his first cousin, Princess Elizabeth, centered at Lancut. Around the Lancut manor grew small satellite communities, including Zolynia and its surrounding villages. After Elizabeth's death, the Pilecki family assumed ownership of the area and built the first of the famous castles in Lancut. Poland was a feudal society well into the 18th century, and the owner of the local manor collected rents and taxes and raised military units for the area's defense. The owner sold, rented or leased land to others, controlled brewing and liquor distilling, and could unilaterally decide public policy in the little unincorporated settlements springing up around the manoral lands, such as Zolynia.

By 1568, Lancut's ownership had passed to the Stadnicki family, including Stanislaw (the "Devil of Lancut"). "Devil" Stadnicki was a brigand who led his mercenary army of 2,000 in robbing townspeople, attacking his neighbors and generally causing chaos for miles around. In 1610 a coalition of neighboring nobles caught and beheaded him.

There were numerous wars and invasions of this part of Poland during the 17th century, and local towns were burned and sacked a number of times. The estate was purchased by the distinguished Lubomirski family in 1628, and in 1783 ownership of their holdings passed by marriage into the famous and fabulously wealthy Potocki Family.

The Potockis (pronounced "Poh-taht-ski" in Polish) were related to virtually every European royal family. Dedicated Polish nationalists, over the years the Potocki family included statesman, diplomats, generals and industrialists. For example, in addition to being Master of Lancut, Count Alfred II served as Prime Minister of Austria and Governor of Galicia before his death in 1862. His wife was a wealthy princess and his son, Count Roman, married the daughter of a princess with relations to the royal families of Austria, England, France and Prussia. By the time Count Alfred III inherited the family titles and estates in 1915, he was among the richest and most connected people in Europe. For over a century, a parade of kings, celebrities and heroes made their way to the 40,000 acre main estate at Lancut to ride, hunt and recreate on the Potocki lands and houses throughout the area.

So well-placed were the Potockis among European royalty and elite that at the outbreak of the First World War, as the German and Russian armies converged on the area around Zolynia, both the German Kaiser and the Russian Tsar gave orders that the Lancut castle and its grounds in Lancut were to be protected. In fact, Kaiser Wilhelm was Count Alfred III's godfather.

Until the entry of Soviet troops in 1944, most of Zolynia's best land, farms, forests and businesses were owned by the masters of the Lancut estate. In 1880, the Potocki estate owned over 8,000 acres in and around Zolynia and held mortgages on a thousand more acres, including a pine forest and three mills. Much of Zolynia's trade and commerce was based on servicing the needs of the vast estate, and most local Poles were agricultural workers for the gentry. By the 20th century, titles of nobility no longer gave the owners of the manor the legal right to "rule" local communities, but they remained the economic and social center of Zoliners' portion of the world.

One of the Potocki's foxhunts. Emperor Franz Joseph, the Duke and Dutchess of Kent and many more of Europe's leading families, politicians and celebrities visited the estates in the decades before World War II.		Austrian Archduke Franz-Ferdinand, one of Europe's greatest marksmen, relaxes with his wife, Princess Sophie, on the Potocki grounds in 1913. The next year, their assassinations would touch off the First World War.

The photographs on this page are from Master of Lancut, Count Alfred Potocki's autobiography.